Kids ordered not to call step parents mum and dad

A court has ordered two Queensland siblings to stop calling their step parents "mum" and "dad."

The Federal Magistrates Court heard that the boys, aged five and six, had been used as "weapons" in an ongoing conflict between their biological parents, whose relationship had broken down and turned "poisonous".

Since their split, each parent had taken up with another partner, the Courier-Mail reports.

The boys' mother encouraged them to call her partner "dad" and their biological father by his given name.

Meanwhile, in what magistrate David Halligan described as a "tit for tat" response, the boys' father had urged his sons to call his new partner "mum."

According to the judgment, the eldest son told a court-appointed psychologist he felt "weird" about calling his stepmother "mum".

The youngest boy, meanwhile, had referred to his own dad by his first name and his stepfather as "dad."